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Eric Zassenhaus

Eric Zassenhaus is the co-publisher of Instant City: A Literary Exploration of San Francisco and Small Press Buyer at City Lights Books. The former Culture Editor at the former Clamor Magazine, and Art Director for Tikkun, Eric has written for many magazines and 'zines, most of which are now, sadly, defunct. You can read his blog on the rise and demise and rise of the independent press at Indiepressing.

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Checking out the most recent indie film or a new play can be an uncomfortable experience, a little bit like watching a high-wire act at the circus. Will the rope-walker make it across? Will s/he stumble? Will we laugh or shrink in our seats when s/he hits the ground with an ugly thud?

Before I set foot into Opera Plaza's theaters, I'd heard that Colma: The Musical had been made on less than a shoestring budget, with the filmmaker paying for much of it himself. I'd been told it was made by college buddies. And I knew its storyline centered on the trials and tribulations of a gaggle of adolescents waxing philosophical in suburbia. This was a musical, mind you. I entered the theater cringing but curious, prepared for a cinematic belly-flop.

"All right. I'm walking south on Bryant, towards 19th again. Where is this place?"

My friend was calling a second time. She'd given up and had the cab drop her off up the street. Camouflaged by graffiti and vegetation, smack-dab in the middle of Bryant Street, Cell Space makes a fitting venue for Hidden Histories, a multifaceted, collaborative series of projects exploring the familiar but obscure in "San Francisco's Eastern landscape."

There's no lack of love for the accordion. From lilting French ditties to rowdy German polka, sober klezmer cryalongs to obstreperous mariachi blowouts -- Italian jingles, Dutch clog stomps, cajun zydeco, Scottish ceilidhs, from the circus to the chapel, the accordion has always had a home among the much of the world's folk music and tradition, seeming to define -- musically, at least -- the peculiar features unique to each culture. Part-piano, part-synthesizer, part-arachnid, the accordion may be one of the most versatile musicmakers around. In its relatively short history of just under two centuries, it has managed to define an impressive amount of styles and inspired a huge range of awkward dance moves.

As soon as the lights go down and the shadows come out, it's clear that Word For Word's adaptation of "Angel Face" intends to be loyal to the dark, pulpy genre its author helped to create.

In fact, as it does for all its productions, Word For Word's performance speaks every word from the original short story, including all the "he said" "she said" quotation attribution, scene-setting, and exposition. It's all there, delivered to the audience, for the most part, as puckish asides.

Time travel is a tricky business. The bane of scientists, artists and eccentrics for centuries, it's one of those theories that you just can't disprove. Yet, once you start trying to pry apart history's past from its present and future, you have pretty good odds of becoming unglued. Just ask anyone who's tried.

"That's how history plays itself out: the desire to keep moving forward collid[es] with all our pasts rushing back at us," says the time-traveling agent from Comings and Goings, a new installation and audio tour produced by Jeannene Przyblyski and Southern Exposure, the nonprofit community organization and gallery based in San Francisco's Mission district.